245 réponses à ce sujet

[tevix]

The alliance wasn't in the dark about your actions, or you'd never have gone to trial. Anderson only agreed to keep the COUNCIL on your back. "Shouldn't be too diffiicult...as long as you keep to the terminus systems."

Most of the time only cerberus knew where shepard was, and half the time he wasn't even in citadel/alliance space. That's why moving around with ease makes sense.

[Erez Kristal]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

. It makes perfect sense for shepard to be willing to say F it and work with cerberus as long as they are trying to stop the reapers.

Assuming Shepard has no moral code, sure. Reasonable people might want to try other options before signing up with space!Bin Laden (never mind the fact that Shepard quits the Alliance by going with Miranda rather than, you know, shooting an armed terrorist wearing enemy colours on sight, before learning any of that which you claim would convince him)

what is this nonesense? 
This is an RP.
There is a goal- Stop the reaper. its up to the player to roleplay his/her shepard how he/she wishs to do it.
Yes in mass effect 3 there was only the version of your shepard. this is why we are all so grumpy about it.

No cerberus- Reapers Win. its that simple.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

I confess that I never viewed Cerberus as terrorists. Having personally engaged in combat with real terrorists, I feel they don't fit the bill at all.

My Shepard has a moral code. It's just his own code that is much different than anyone else. His own sense of honor and ethics. I don't subscribe to conventional approaches to these, because they don't apply to every problem you face. The Reapers don't subscribe to it. 

I'm honestly am rather frustrated by people who believe in an inherent sense of morality and objectivity to morality and ethics. It's a moral high ground fallacy, and I view such morality as childish and limiting. Not to mention the people that espouse this viewpoint are very arrogant and hold a 'holier-than-thou' attitude.

Modifié par MassivelyEffective0730, 15 octobre 2013 - 10:21 .

[Jukaga]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

I confess that I never viewed Cerberus as terrorists. Having personally engaged in combat with real terrorists, I feel they don't fit the bill at all.

My Shepard has a moral code. It's just his own code that is much different than anyone else.

I'm honestly am rather frustrated by people who believe in an inherent sense of morality and objectivity to morality and ethics. It's a moral high ground fallacy, and I view such morality as childish and limiting. Not to mention the people that espouse this viewpoint are very arrogant and hold a 'holier-than-thou' attitude.

Agreed. Cerberus is rogue, deceptive and ambitious but it is not a terrorist organization. They do not blow up buildings for political ends, they don't attack subway riders on their way home from work.

There is no true objectivity to morality, the universe doesn't care. There is what is good for you and what isn't. For me, subjective morality means that I can't dispose of other independent sentient beings to advance my own ends. Enlightened self-interest is the key.

[Reorte]

Cerberus aren't terrorists, they've got more in common with the James Bond-style villain (although calling them SPECTRE would've been a bit confusing). I'm not really sure if any real parallels exist.

Modifié par Reorte, 15 octobre 2013 - 10:30 .

[Jukaga]

Maybe the colonies vs. Confederation conflict from Wing Commander 4, but it kinda breaks down because Admiral Tolwyn of the Confederation is more of a TiM like personality.

[Kataphrut94]

I have no issues with the morals of Cerberus and fully support the 'ends justifies the means' ideology that TIM has going for him. But you know what: ideology is just ideology, and Cerberus utterly fails at backing it up with results. Pragia and Overlord were horrible for no practical reason, Akuze made no sense and Project Lazarus somehow managed to go wrong despite their being no rational way it could have gone wrong. If you look at things morally, then Cerberus is evil. If you don't, then just incompetent, certainly more so than any other faction in the series.

That's why I cannot sympathise with people who want to support Cerberus, because you may as well say you want to support the Blood Pack, or the Thorian, or even the Reapers themselves. Mass Effect 2 shilled them as being the last, best hope of humanity, but only by retconning the factions from the previous games into strawmen. Note that Mass Effect 2 was the only time we here that the Alliance and Council sat around doing nothing about the Reapers; it's only because the writers wanted you to like Cerberus. Mass Effect 1 ends with the clear implication that they believe you about the Reapers, and Mass Effect 3 wastes no time in getting them back on track. It's because those factions are actually important to dealing with the Reapers, plus no matter how bad they screw up, they'll never be as bad as Cerberus.

[tevix]

@Kataphrut

I don't know, I was never convinced that the council was looking for a way out of the reaper problem. A way to convince themselves it wasn't a real threat. Politicians often fuss about money and standing and apperances, they likely thought it cost too much of each to justify doing anything about it.

Politicians don't solve problems, they try to find a way to make them go away.

[MegaIllusiveMan]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I have no issues with the morals of Cerberus and fully support the 'ends justifies the means' ideology that TIM has going for him. But you know what: ideology is just ideology, and Cerberus utterly fails at backing it up with results. Pragia and Overlord were horrible for no practical reason, Akuze made no sense and Project Lazarus somehow managed to go wrong despite their being no rational way it could have gone wrong. If you look at things morally, then Cerberus is evil. If you don't, then just incompetent, certainly more so than any other faction in the series.

That's why I cannot sympathise with people who want to support Cerberus, because you may as well say you want to support the Blood Pack, or the Thorian, or even the Reapers themselves. Mass Effect 2 shilled them as being the last, best hope of humanity, but only by retconning the factions from the previous games into strawmen. Note that Mass Effect 2 was the only time we here that the Alliance and Council sat around doing nothing about the Reapers; it's only because the writers wanted you to like Cerberus. Mass Effect 1 ends with the clear implication that they believe you about the Reapers, and Mass Effect 3 wastes no time in getting them back on track. It's because those factions are actually important to dealing with the Reapers, plus no matter how bad they screw up, they'll never be as bad as Cerberus.

This actually makes sense in game history

I'm replaying ME2 and I just Talked to Kenneth and Gabby(Normandy's Engineers) and Ken said something like this:

The Alliance dismissed everything about the Reapers when you died.

It kinda makes sense if the Alliance is actually doing something about the Reapers, since Shepard has returned AND Reapers are Actually atacking

[Kataphrut94]

The implication was that they were suppressing the Reaper threat before Shepard died by sending him to fight geth. Again, this is all stuff that happens in Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 1 ended with the Alliance and the Council both saying more or less outright that they believed you about the Reapers and were prepared to step up to the plate. ME2 should have carried on from there, but instead it retconned everything to make room for Cerberus, whom I'm pretty sure no one asked for.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I have no issues with the morals of Cerberus and fully support the 'ends justifies the means' ideology that TIM has going for him. But you know what: ideology is just ideology, and Cerberus utterly fails at backing it up with results.

I disagree completely. In the scheme of things, the majority of Cerberus' operations were successes. As I said, the vast majority of ones that weren't were beyond Cerberus' control. The only mistake I can think of is the Rachni, and Cerberus owns up to it. 

Pragia and Overlord were horrible for no practical reason

Teltin Facility's purpose was to create very powerful biotics and to enhance the threshold of human biotic capability. They of course went beyond TIM's authority. They are acknowledged as having gone rogue. Regardless, they succeeded. Jack is the example. Jack is regarded as one of, if not the most powerful human biotics in existence. Her capabilities are very powerful. Yes, the methods used were excessive, but they did produce results.

Overlord, despite the lofty cost and cruel methodology, was also a success. Cerberus did indeed create a way to control the Geth by creating a hybrid organic/synthetic being. Unfortunately, the results were indeed skewed by the fact that the main test subject suffered from a mental and emotional handicap that, combined with the trauma brought on by being forcibly inserted into a device that was pointlessly barbaric. I think the same result could have been achieved through a less violent means. However, the results are still there. Cerberus did indeed accomplish the goal of finding a means to control the Geth. Archer may have interpreted TIM's instructions rather liberally, but he did get a result that Cerberus was aiming for.

They're successes, but there is blowback and unintended consequences unfortunately. Still I say it simply needs refinement and retuning.

Akuze made no sense

We really were never given a motivation or goal for Akuze. I suspect the reason it makes no sense is because we really only hear about Cerberus' involvement in the project second-hand, and we never learn what their stated purpose and goal was. I'm hesitant to call it a failure since it seems that Cerberus indeed accomplished whatever they were trying to accomplish.

and Project Lazarus somehow managed to go wrong despite their being no rational way it could have gone wrong.

As I recall, this was an unquestionable success. This Project saved the galaxy. It had unintended consequences for Cerberus, but the project completely succeeded at it's purpose. Led by Miranda, Cerberus resurrected Commander Shepard and from there, went on to stop the Collectors, and later, the Reapers themselves. If you're referring to how the station was attacked, it was pretty much a case of worker dissatisfaction and external sabotage beyond TIM and Cerberus' control. And Wilson, the worker who was dissatisfied, was angry for his own personal and selfish reasons.

If you look at things morally, then Cerberus is evil. If you don't, then just incompetent, certainly more so than any other faction in the series.

From my own moral perspective, Cerberus is extreme, but they have the greater good in mind. Or at least, their vision of the greater good, one that I believe in and am sympathetic too.

That's why I cannot sympathise with people who want to support Cerberus, because you may as well say you want to support the Blood Pack, or the Thorian, or even the Reapers themselves. Mass Effect 2 shilled them as being the last, best hope of humanity, but only by retconning the factions from the previous games into strawmen. Note that Mass Effect 2 was the only time we here that the Alliance and Council sat around doing nothing about the Reapers; it's only because the writers wanted you to like Cerberus. Mass Effect 1 ends with the clear implication that they believe you about the Reapers, and Mass Effect 3 wastes no time in getting them back on track. It's because those factions are actually important to dealing with the Reapers, plus no matter how bad they screw up, they'll never be as bad as Cerberus.

No, I think the Council and the alliance only got back to work because the Reapers were now in their faces. The alliance is attacked right from the beginning. The Council is struggling with the Reapers due to the fact they didn't do much about them in the beginning. It literally takes the Reapers arriving and burning down city streets on Earth for the alliance to finally acknowledge the Reapers might, just might, be more than myth. That's basic incompetence there. And the writers wanted me to like Cerberus? Great. It worked. It worked so well, that when they did a 180 in ME3, I got upset about it and wondered what the hell happened. They wanted me to like the alliance. They failed miserably there.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

The implication was that they were suppressing the Reaper threat before Shepard died by sending him to fight geth. Again, this is all stuff that happens in Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 1 ended with the Alliance and the Council both saying more or less outright that they believed you about the Reapers and were prepared to step up to the plate. ME2 should have carried on from there, but instead it retconned everything to make room for Cerberus, whom I'm pretty sure no one asked for.

The way I see it, after Shepard went off to clean up the Geth, the Council panicked and convinced themselves that Sovereign was just a Geth Construct. It was much more convenient and easier to pin the blame on them than acknowledge a coming galactic apocalypse on a race of hyper-advanced sentient warships. They entered a denial stage to convince themselves that the threat was nothing more than a massive Geth incursion, because that was something they could handle. That's how I see it.

[tevix]

I have to second virtually everything ME0 said. And I second what I said as well, what the council said at the end of ME1 was bluster. I still remember the looks they gave each other and shepard's back when he went off to try to do something about the reapers.

Kind of like "Wait, he still believes that c---p?". Politicians say things to save face, they rarely say what they mean or mean what they say. There is no logical reason to believe they would fork over the cash and resources to do anything about the reapers until it was too late.

[Erez Kristal]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I have no issues with the morals of Cerberus and fully support the 'ends justifies the means' ideology that TIM has going for him. But you know what: ideology is just ideology, and Cerberus utterly fails at backing it up with results. Pragia and Overlord were horrible for no practical reason, Akuze made no sense and Project Lazarus somehow managed to go wrong despite their being no rational way it could have gone wrong. If you look at things morally, then Cerberus is evil. If you don't, then just incompetent, certainly more so than any other faction in the series.

That's why I cannot sympathise with people who want to support Cerberus, because you may as well say you want to support the Blood Pack, or the Thorian, or even the Reapers themselves. Mass Effect 2 shilled them as being the last, best hope of humanity, but only by retconning the factions from the previous games into strawmen. Note that Mass Effect 2 was the only time we here that the Alliance and Council sat around doing nothing about the Reapers; it's only because the writers wanted you to like Cerberus. Mass Effect 1 ends with the clear implication that they believe you about the Reapers, and Mass Effect 3 wastes no time in getting them back on track. It's because those factions are actually important to dealing with the Reapers, plus no matter how bad they screw up, they'll never be as bad as Cerberus.

if you think pragia and overlord, akuze were horribile for no practical reason then you  clearly dont support the ends justfy the means ideology. not to mention that akuze and pragia were both 100% alliance operation and overlord is opened for questioning...
Your posts are so often filled with incorrect information data, that i dont know if you are unware of the information you spread or that you bluntly lie to coverup for your sweet alliance.
I have no quarrels with the alliance. but i also hate being jerked around and the alliance being presented as holier than thou. i also still think alliance-cerberus relations runs deep.


Pragia - Subject Zero+Breaking research in human biotics ---> Improved human biotic capabilities. an alliance goal (your sweet ;3 implants...)
Overlord - Save billions of lives. by stopping a war with the murderour geth, maybe even get the control of the geth and protect the undefended human colonies
Akuze - Push forward the defence budject,and research ways to combat poison. you know it as the medical exoskeleton 10 ....


As for the council and alliance attidue about the reapers - what would the council gain by going public with their knowledge about the reapers? they need people going to work every day, they need people to live. remember nilhus- the galaxy can be a very dangerous place, is your race truly ready for this? STG- our records will be sealed...

The council and alliance work in secret. just because the public and shepard arent inside the loop doesnt mean they arent doing anything about the reapers. they would be stupid to go public on the issue. they already have vastly increased defence budject due to the geth attack on the citadel. increasing panic wont help at all.

Shepard is working with cerberus in me2 because cerberus can work in the terminus freely. the crosshair dont have the same freedom cerberus has. 

If you pick udinna for counciler in mass effect 1. you know he believes you about the reaper. the alliance also found the derliect reapers and object rho. the alliance were researching soveriegn in sidon. the alliance fought soveriegn dreadnought. you have videos of your conversation with vigil and soveriegn. thinking the council truly denied it and that no stg or spectres are working on it. is more than naive.

Why else would shepard have such an easy time working for a terror organization with the blessing of the council?

Shepard in mass effect 2 & mass effect 1 is often kept on a need to know basis(Virmire, Eden Prime, Normandy Lockdown.)

Modifié par erezike, 16 octobre 2013 - 05:13 .

[KaiserShep]

Regarding the council and its acknowledgement of the reapers, it's one thing to deny it publicly, but another thing entirely to prattle on about denying them in a private session with an operative that is accompanied by another councilor. I always saw their sudden turn against Shepard's claims about the reapers, after having the Citadel get hijacked by a giant killer space robot, as kind of a frustrating retcon, since they do acknowledge them in ME1.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 16 octobre 2013 - 05:30 .

[Erez Kristal]

KaiserShep wrote...

Regarding the council and its acknowledgement of the reapers, it's one thing to deny it publicly, but another thing entirely to prattle on about denying them in a private session with an operative that is accompanied by another councilor. I always saw their sudden turn against Shepard's claims about the reapers, after having the Citadel get hijacked by a giant killer space robot, as kind of a frustrating retcon, since they do acknowledge them in ME1.

What good would it do to shepard if he knew the council believed in it?
in order for this coverup to be succesful as few people as possibile need to know about it.
Knowledge was on a need to know basis.
Some shepards were mature enough to handle such secret. the council couldn't make the discretion. the council didnt make all its way to become the leaders of the citadel by acting like fools.

Udina is the least liked character in mass effect, because people dont understand all the backroom politics he has to deal with in order to bring humanity where it is.

Many uprising leaders who have yet to be elected for sit. like to talk about how much they are going to change and how bad the president they are replacing was(people talk of change when something is bad) and then when those leaders do get elected they discover the life of politics isnt as simple as they thought and that the person who was there before them was actually doing a better job at it.

Modifié par erezike, 16 octobre 2013 - 05:42 .

[KaiserShep]

I'm pretty sure most people don't like Udina because from the very start, he's kind of the stereotypical bellyaching bureaucrat, which made shooting him in ME3 all the more satisfying.

In any case, my primary Shepard pretty much plays nice through all of this, despite the frustration, because there doesn't seem much point to butt against a trio of holograms, and I can just let her blow off steam at the swath of mercs, collectors and other things that she has to kill to complete the objective.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 16 octobre 2013 - 05:50 .

[Erez Kristal]

Why do you say the politicians of mass effect were incompetent?
On what are you basing this on?

Modifié par erezike, 16 octobre 2013 - 07:38 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

The US will settle everything financial by noon on Wednesday. You watch. It's been dick waving that started in July.

You had one or more people in Udina or Anderson's office who didn't have clearance to know the reaper threat. The Council was going to shine you on in front of them. "Ah yes, 'reapers'."

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

And quite honestly you can't expect the other powers to drop everything they're doing to protect their own worlds to defend Earth. That's part of that "Humans are Special" plot BS.

[silverexile17s]

erezike wrote...

Why do you say the politicians of mass effect were incompetent?
On what are you basing this on?

How about backsliding on the Reaper threat just to save face with the galaxy, who already think they're incompent because of how Saren and the geth ripped the Citadel a new one, despite having "the situation under control?"
How about threatening Shepard with charges of treason -- which is usually punishible by execution via death by spacing -- over the Commander's ties with Cerberus, after everything Shepard did for them?
How about keeping the Commander in lock-up and publically scapegoating Shepard and ruining what little reputation he had for the sake of keeping the batarians from causing an uproar?
How about ignoring the Collector attacks and just brushing them off as being pirate attacks?
How about not stopping the krogan incusions that led to the Krogan Rebellions until after the krogan took an asari world?
How about letting Saren go scott-free without any sort of investigation simply because the objecting party was an "unproven race?"
How about their general politics in branding all races not on the Council as "minor races?"

Based on the above -- and a fair amount more -- I'd be more then willing to say that the politicians of ME are some of the most arrogant and incompetent in existance -- hell, a majority of politicians are like that anyway.
What exactally have they done to prove they aren't incompetent is the real question. They don't think practally. They're only concerned with their image in all this -- something that will be completely inconsiqential if the Reapers win.

Modifié par silverexile17s, 16 octobre 2013 - 08:02 .